“But I heard her here,” said the Skokie, “and I want her back.”
“How did she sound?” asked the Shelni. “Like this?” And he jugged some jug music on his flute.
“Yes, that is my wife,” said the Skokie. “Where have you hidden her? That is her very voice.”
“That is nobody’s wife,” the Shelni told the Skokie. “That is just a little tune that I made up.”
“You play with my wife’s voice, so you must have swallowed my wife,” the Skokie said. “I will have to take you apart and see.”
“If I swallowed anybody’s wife I’m sorry,” said the Shelni. “Go ahead then.”
So the Skokie took the Shelni apart and scattered the pieces all over the hole and some of them on the grass outside. But he could not find any part of his wife.
“I have made a mistake,” said the Skokie. “Who would have thought that one who had not swallowed my wife could make her voice on the flute!”
“It is all right,” said the Shelni, “so long as you put me together again. I remember part of the way I go. If you remember the rest of the way, then you can put me together again.”
But neither of them remembered very well the way the Shelni was before he was taken apart. The Skokie put him together all wrong. There were not enough pieces for some parts and too many for others.
“Let me help,” said a Frog who was there. “I remember where some of the parts go. Besides, I believe it was my own wife he swallowed. That was her voice on the flute. It was not a Skokie voice.”
The Frog helped, and they all remembered what they could, but it did not work. Parts of the Shelni could not be found again, and some of the parts would not go into him at all. When they had him finished, the Shelni was in great pain and could hardly move, and he didn’t look much like a Shelni.
“I’ve done all I can,” the Skokie said. “That’s the way you’ll have to be. Where is Frog?”
“I’m inside,” said Frog.
“That’s where you will have to stay,” the Skokie said. “I’ve had enough of both of you. Enough, and these pieces left over. I will just take them with me. Maybe I can make someone else out of them.”
That is the way the Shelni still is, put together all wrong. In his wrong form he walks the country by night, being ashamed to go by day. Some folks are startled when they meet him, not knowing this story. He still plays his jug flute with the lost Skokie wife’s voice and with Frog’s voice. Listen, you can hear it now! The Shelni goes in sorrow and pain because nobody knows how to put him together right.
The Skokie never did find his lost wife.
This is how it is told.
And then there was the second story that we recorded yesterday, the last story, though we did not know it then, that we would record of the Shelni: The Singing Pigs
This is how they say it.
We have the ancient story of the singing pigs who sing so loud that they fly up into the sky on the tail of their own singing. Now we ourselves, if we can sing loud enough, if we can jug the flutes strong enough, if we can tang the tines deep enough, will get to be the Singing Pigs of our own story. Many already have gone away as Singing Pigs.
There come certain bell men with music carts. They play rangle-dangle Sky music. They come for love of us. And if we can hurry fast enough when they come we can go with them, we can ride a tin can over the sky.
Bong! bong! that is the bell man with the music cart now! All the Shelni hurry! This is the day you may get to go. Come all you Shelni from the valley and the stream and jump on the cart for the free ride. Come all the Shelni from the meadows and the woods. Come up from the tree roots and the holes underground. The Skokie don’t get to go, the Frogs don’t get to go, only the Shelni get to go.
Cry if the cart is too full and you don’t get to go today, but don’t cry too long. The bell men say that they will come back tomorrow and every day till there are no Shelni left at all.
“Come all you little Singing-Pig-Shelni,” a bell man shouts. “Come get your free rides in the tin cans all the way to Earth! Hey, Ben, what other animal jumps onto the slaughter wagon when you only ring a bell? Come along little Shelni-Pigs, room for ten more on this wagon. That’s all, that’s all. We’ll have lots more wagons going tomorrow. We’ll take all of you, all of you! Hey, Ben, did you ever see little pigs cry when there’s no more room for them on the slaughter wagon?” These are the high kind words that a bell man speak for love of us.
Not even have to give a burial tooth or other tooth to pay for the ride. Frogs can’t go, Skokies can’t go, only the Shelni get to go!
Here are the wonderful things! From the wagon, the Shelni get to go to one room where all their bones are taken out. This does never happen to Shelni before. In another room the Shelni are boiled down to only half their size, little as little-boy Shelni. Then they all get to play the game and crawl into the tin cans. And then they get their free ride in the tin cans all the way to Earth. Ride a tin can!
Wipe off your sticky tears you who miss the music cart today. Go to sleep early tonight and rise early tomorrow. Sing your loudest tomorrow so the bell men will know where to come. Jug the flutes very strong tomorrow, tang the tines deep, say whoop! whoop! here we are, bell men.
All laugh when they go with the bell men in the music cart. But there is story that someday a Shelni woman will cry instead of laugh when they take her. What can be the matter with this woman that she will cry? She will cry out, “Damn you, it’s murder! They’re almost people! You can’t take them! They’re as much people as I am. Double damn you, you can’t take me! I’m human. I know I look as funny as they do but I’m human. Oh, oh, oh!” This is the funniest thing of the story, the prophecy thing part.
Oh, oh, oh, the woman will say, Oh, oh, oh, the jug flutes will echo it. What will be the matter with the Shelni woman who cries instead of laughs?
This is our last story, wherever it is told. When it is told for the last time, then there will be no more stories here, there will be no more Shelni. Who needs stories and jug flute music who can ride a tin can?
That is how it has been said.
Then we went out (for the last time, as it happened) from the Shelni burrow. And, as always, there was the riming with the five-year-old Ancient who guarded the place:
“What to crowing?”
“Got to going.”
“Jinx on Jolly,
“Golly, Holly!”
“Were it other,
“Bug, my brother!”
“Holly crying.
“Sing her flying,
“Jugging, shouting.”
“Going outing.”
Now this was remarkable. Holly Harkel was crying when we came out of the burrow for the (as it happened) last time. She was crying great goblin tears. I almost expected them to be green.
Today I keep thinking how amazingly the late Holly Harkel had finally come to look like the Shelni. She was a Shelni. “It is all the same with me now,” she said this morning. “Would it be love if they should go and I should stay?” It is a sticky business. I tried to complain, but those people were still ringing that bell and chanting, “All you little Pig-Shelni-Singers come jump on the cart. Ride a tin can to Earth! Hey, Ben, look at them jump on the slaughter wagon!”
“It was inexcusable,” I said. “Surely you could tell a human from a Shelni.”
“Not that one,” said a bell ringer. “I tell you they all jumped on the wagon willingly, even the funny-looking one who was crying. Sure, you can have her bones, if you can tell which ones they are.”
I have Holly’s bones. That is all. There was never a creature like her. And now it is over with.